Since the beginning of this year, China's financial regulatory authorities have introduced a series of policy measures to expand the breadth and depth of financial openness, including relaxing thresholds, benchmarking rules, enhancing cross-border services, and deepening interconnectivity, in order to jointly build a new pattern of high-level financial openness. Experts believe that cross-border finance is flourishing, financial markets are interconnected, international capital is allocated globally, and many "milestone" progress has been made in financial opening in the first half of the year. Looking ahead, some core business areas are expected to increase their openness to foreign investment, further expanding the breadth and depth of financial openness. Multiple measures have been taken to build a new pattern of high-level financial opening up. A package of financial opening measures has been implemented one after another, and the door to financial opening is getting wider and wider. ——The threshold for foreign shareholding has been significantly relaxed. Starting from March 1st, financial institutions in Hong Kong and Macau will no longer comply with the requirement of "total assets not less than 2 billion US dollars at the end of the most recent year" when investing in domestic insurance companies; In June of this year, AIA Life and Dutch Global Life were approved to establish a wholly foreign-owned insurance asset management company; Recently, Santander Bank of Spain was approved to establish a branch in Shenzhen... China has completely lifted the restrictions on foreign shareholding in the banking, securities, fund management, futures, and life insurance fields. A person in charge of a foreign-funded insurance asset management institution stated that China's financial sub sectors such as banking, insurance, funds, securities, asset management, and futures are forming a comprehensive opening-up pattern with a larger scope, wider scope, and deeper level. A set of data can prove that currently, the total assets of foreign banks and insurance institutions in China exceed 7 trillion yuan, foreign insurance companies account for 9% of the domestic market share in premiums, and foreign banks' derivative business accounts for nearly one-fifth of the domestic market share; Chinese funded institutions have extensive operations in over 70 countries and regions. ——Proactively aligning with international high standard economic and trade rules. In January this year, the People's Bank of China and other five departments jointly issued a document proposing 20 policies and measures to allow foreign-funded financial institutions to carry out new financial services similar to those of Chinese funded financial institutions, support cross-border purchase of certain types of overseas financial services according to law, facilitate inward and outward transfers related to foreign investors' investment, and improve arrangements for cross-border flow of financial data, so as to comprehensively enhance the institutional opening of the pilot free trade zone (Hong Kong). ——Enhance the convenience of cross-border financial services. In March of this year, the People's Bank of China and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange expanded the pilot business of integrated domestic and foreign currency capital pool of multinational companies to facilitate the coordinated use of cross-border funds by multinational companies; In June, the cross-border payment system jointly launched by the People's Bank of China and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority was officially launched. Industry experts have stated that Cross border Payment Connect provides online and fast remittance services for both local currency and RMB to residents of the two places through the direct interconnection of their monetary authorities' infrastructure. This further enhances the efficiency and experience of cross-border payments, facilitates economic and trade cooperation and personnel exchanges between the two places. While injecting new vitality into Hong Kong's development, it will also further promote the cross-border use of RMB and promote high-level opening up to the outside world. ——Promote the continuous deepening of interconnectivity between domestic and foreign financial markets. In January of this year, the China Securities Regulatory Commission revised the mutual recognition mechanism for funds between mainland China and Hong Kong. The sales ratio limit for compliant mainland China and Hong Kong fund products in each other's markets has been relaxed from the previous 50% to 80%; The China Securities Regulatory Commission recently announced that it will allow compliant foreign investors (i.e. QFII and RQFII) to participate in on exchange ETF option trading from October 9th, with trading purposes limited to hedging; The People's Bank of China recently announced to improve the operation mechanism of Bond Connect "southbound link". In the near future, it will expand the scope of domestic investors to four types of non bank institutions, including securities firms, funds, insurance and wealth management. By the end of May 2025, the total amount of Chinese bonds held by overseas institutions reached 4.4 trillion yuan, an increase of nearly 400% compared with that before the opening of Bond Connect. Zhang Jinqiu, Vice President of HSBC China, stated that "Southbound Connect" provides domestic investors with more opportunities to participate in the international financial market, and is also an effective practice to steadily promote the orderly flow of domestic and foreign funds in both directions. Exploring the "Shanghai Experience" of Financial Openness and Innovation. Shanghai is the first pilot free trade zone in China, and China is actively promoting the high-level financial opening up of the Shanghai pilot free trade zone to the outside world, comprehensively enhancing the level of Shanghai as an international financial center, and forming a batch of replicable and promotable experiences. A certain biopharmaceutical technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. has long relied on equity financing to supplement cash flow. However, due to the failure of the D-round (overseas) financing to land as scheduled, the company was once in a state of tight R&D funds. Thank you for the suggestion of Shanghai Bank. Through facilitation policies, we have expanded our overseas financing quota and obtained a foreign debt quota of 11 million RMB, which meets our funding needs for future innovation and research and development, greatly relieving our operational pressure, "said the person in charge of the enterprise. This enterprise is a beneficiary of the Shanghai Branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange actively promoting the expansion of pilot business entities for cross-border financing facilitation and continuously improving the level of cross-border trade and investment and financing facilitation. A package of financial service measures, including optimizing cross-border capital pools for multinational corporations, promoting internationalization of payment services, and enhancing the functionality of free trade account systems, are being intensively implemented in Shanghai to facilitate cross-border business for enterprises and foreign visitors to China. At the beginning of this year, we optimized the integrated domestic and foreign currency fund pool of multinational corporations, continuously improved the policy of centralized operation and management of cross-border funds, and supported their flexible adjustment of domestic and foreign currency funds, which was widely welcomed by business entities. ”Ji Min, head of the Research Bureau of the People's Bank of China, recently introduced that as of the end of May, the number of cross-border capital pools set up by multinational companies in Shanghai had reached 169, the amount of centralized foreign debt had reached 246.83 billion US dollars, and the amount of overseas loans had exceeded 80 billion US dollars, all of which ranked first in the country. The free trade account is an important carrier for facilitating cross-border capital flow and trade investment and financing in the pilot free trade zone. In March of this year, the "Several Provisions on Promoting the Development of Free Trade Account Business in China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone" were issued in Pudong New Area, Shanghai, to achieve the orderly and free flow of funds between the pilot free trade zone and overseas in accordance with the law; In June this year, the Shanghai headquarters of the People's Bank of China solicited opinions on the function upgrading of the free trade account in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, and proposed to comprehensively improve the function of the free trade account. The data shows that a total of 179000 free trade accounts have been opened so far. The convenience of payment for overseas personnel is related to the "financial sense" of overseas Chinese people. With the support of the People's Bank of China, overseas electronic payment institutions acquired domestic licensed payment institutions by adding code. In April of this year, Payoneer announced the completion of its acquisition of EasyPay, becoming the third foreign payment platform to be approved to provide online payment services in the Chinese market, following PayPal and SkyPay. For overseas individuals, the payment convenience of "large card swiping, small QR code scanning, and cash backing" has now been fully covered. Continuing to expand the breadth and depth of financial openness, looking forward to the future, the determination of China's financial industry to expand high-level openness will not change. Multiple financial regulatory departments have stated that they will further expand the breadth and depth of financial openness, injecting more momentum and vitality into high-quality development. Specifically, it includes vigorously replicating and promoting the experience and practices of expanding institutional opening-up in free trade zones and ports, and supporting foreign institutions to participate in more financial business pilot projects; Benchmarking against relevant financial regulations in international high standard economic and trade agreements, exploring greater openness in a wider range of fields and on a larger scale; Based on the business characteristics and risk features of foreign-funded institutions, timely optimize relevant policies to enable foreign-funded institutions to showcase their strengths and develop healthily in a more friendly and inclusive environment. Zeng Gang, Chief Expert and Director of Shanghai Finance and Development Laboratory, stated that currently, the opening up of finance to the outside world has reached a certain breadth, but the depth needs to be deepened. Some core business areas can increase the opening up to foreign investment. Currently, foreign institutions have differentiated advantages in areas such as asset management, green finance, and cross-border payments. Introducing foreign investment to participate in pilot projects can make up for the shortcomings of Chinese institutions in derivative design, risk management technology, and other areas, especially in emerging fields such as carbon finance and catastrophe bonds. Foreign investment experience will accelerate the maturity of the local market. Dong Ximiao, Chief Researcher of the China Merchants Association, suggests that on the one hand, we should explore the establishment of a financial tax system that is in line with the characteristics of the Shanghai International Financial Center to maintain the operation of Shanghai's commercial activities; On the other hand, a coordinated regulatory mechanism should be established between finance, customs, commerce and other departments. In addition, it is necessary to establish an international legal and regulatory environment to enhance the professionalism and efficiency of financial case trials. (New Society)